Man as Symphony of the Creative Word

On-line since: 12th July, 2002

LECTURE II

20th October, 1923

Having considered in the lecture yesterday the nature of the animals
of the heights, represented by the eagle, the animals of the middle
region, represented by the lion, and the animals of the earth-depths,
represented by the ox or cow, we can today turn our attention to man's
connection with the universe from that particular aspect which reveals
the inner structural relationship of the human being to these
representatives of the animal world.

Let us first turn our gaze to the upper regions, about which we
said yesterday that when the animal derives its particular forces from
them, they do then in fact cause the whole animal to become
head-organization. There we see how the bird owes its very being to
the sun-irradiated atmosphere. This sun-irradiated atmosphere —
everything, that is to say, which can be absorbed by the bird through
the fact that it owes the most important part of its being to it
— is a necessity to the bird. And I told you yesterday that it is
upon this that the actual formation of the plumage depends. The bird
has its actual being within. What is brought about in the bird by the
outer world is embodied in its plumage. But when the influence of this
sun-irradiated air is not impressed on the being from without, as in
the case of the eagle, but is activated within, as in the case of the
human nervous system, then thoughts arise — momentary thoughts,
as I said, thoughts of the immediate present.

When we thus turn our gaze upwards to the heights, and are filled with
all that results from such a contemplation, it is to the tranquil
atmosphere and to the streaming sunlight that our attention is drawn.
We must not, however, think of the sun in isolation. The sun maintains
its power through the fact that it comes into connection with the
different regions of the universe. Human knowledge has expressed this
relationship by connecting the sun activities with the so-called
animal circle or zodiac, so that when the sunlight falls to earth from
Leo, from Libra or from Scorpio, its significance also signifies
something different for the earth according to whether it is
strengthened or weakened by the other planets of our planetary system.
And here different relationships arise in regard to the different
planets; the relationships in regard to the so-called outer planets,
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, are different from those in regard to the
so-called inner planets, Mercury, Venus and Moon.

If we now consider the organization of the eagle, it is most important
first of all to observe how far the Sun-forces become modified,
strengthened or weakened, by their interaction with Saturn, Jupiter,
Mars. It is not for nothing that legend speaks of the eagle as the
bird of Jupiter. In general Jupiter stands as the representative of
the outer planets. And if we were to draw a diagram illustrating what
is meant here, we would have to draw the sphere which Saturn has in
world-space, in the cosmos, as also that of Jupiter and Mars.

Let us draw this, so that we may actually see it, in a diagram: (see
next page) the Saturn sphere, the Jupiter sphere, the Mars sphere;
then we find the transition to the Sun sphere, giving us in the
outermost part of our planetary system the working together of Sun,
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn.

And when we see the eagle circling in the air we do in fact utter a
reality when we say: These forces which stream through the air from
the Sun in such a way that they are composed of the working together
of Sun with Mars, Jupiter and Saturn — these forces are those
which live in the whole structure, in the very being of the eagle. But
at the same time they live in the formation of the human head. And
when we place man into the universe in accordance with his true nature
— on earth he is only, so to speak, a miniature picture of
himself — as regards his head we must place him into the
eagle-sphere.

We must, therefore, think of Man in regard to his head as belonging to
the eagle-sphere; and therewith we have indicated that element in the
human being which is connected with the upward tending forces.

The lion is the representative of those animals which are in the real
sense Sun-animals, in which the sun unfolds its own special force. The
lion prospers best when the constellations above the sun and the
constellations below the sun are so ordered that they exert the least
influence upon the sun itself. Then those special characteristics
appear which I described to you yesterday, namely that the forces of
the sun itself, permeating the air, produce in the lion a breathing
system of just such a kind that in its rhythm it is in perfect balance
with the rhythm of the blood-circulation, not as regards number but as
regards its dynamic. In the lion this balances itself out in a
wonderfully beautiful way. The lion regulates his blood-circulation
through the breathing, and the blood-circulation continually
stimulates the stream of the breath. I told you that this can be seen
even in the form, in the very structure of the lion's mouth. In this
form itself the wonderful relationship between the rhythm of the blood
and the rhythm of the breath is actually expressed. One can see this,
too, in the remarkable gaze of the lion, resting in itself, and yet
turned boldly outwards.

But what lives in the lion's gaze lives also in the other elements of
human nature, the metabolic system, the head system, and the breast
or heart system, that is the rhythmic system of Man.

And if we picture the special Sun-activity we must so draw the diagram
of the human being that we place his heart, and the lungs connected to
it, into the region of this Sun-activity. It is here, in this sphere,
that we have the lion-nature in man.

When we turn to the inner planets nearer the earth, we have first the
Mercury sphere. This has to do in particular with the finer parts of
the digestive organism of man, the region where the foodstuffs are
transformed into lymphatic substance, which is then carried into the
circulation of the blood.

Progressing further, we come into the region of Venus-activity. This
is connected with the somewhat coarser parts of man's digestive
system, to that part of the human organism which works primarily from
the stomach upon the foodstuffs which have been taken in. We next come
into the sphere of the Moon. (I am drawing this in the sequence
customary today in astronomy; I could also draw it differently.) There
we enter that region where those digestive processes which are
connected with the Moon act and re-act upon the human being.

In this way we have placed man into the entire universe. By turning
our minds to those cosmic activities which the Sun carries out in
conjunction with Mercury, Venus, Moon, we come into the region
containing the forces which are taken up by the order of the animals
represented for us by the cow, in the sense which I spoke of
yesterday. There we have what the Sun cannot do by itself alone, but
what the Sun can only do when its own forces are conducted to the
earth by means of the planets which are nearest to the earth. When
these forces are all at work, when they do not only stream through the
air, but penetrate through the earth's surface in various ways, then
these forces work up again from the earth depths. And what thus works
up from earth depths belongs to the sphere which we see embodied
outwardly in the organism of the cow.

The cow is the animal of digestion. It is, moreover, the animal which
accomplishes digestion in such a way that there lies in its digestive
processes the earthly reflection of something actually super-earthly;
its whole digestive process is permeated with an astrality which
reflects the entire cosmos in a wonderful light-filled way. There is
— as I said yesterday — a whole world in this astral
organism of the cow, but everything is heavy, everything is so
organized that the weight of the earth works there. You have only to
consider that the cow is obliged to consume an eighth of her weight in
foodstuffs each day. Man can be satisfied with a fortieth part and
remain healthy. Thus the cow needs earth-gravity in order fully to
meet the needs of her organism. Her organism is orientated towards
this need for the weight of matter. Every day the cow must digest an
eighth of her weight. This binds the cow with her material substance
to the earth, whereas, through her astrality she is at the same time
an image of the heights, of the cosmos.

This is why, as I said yesterday, the cow is an object of so much
veneration for those who confess to the Hindu religion. The Hindu says
to himself: The cow lives here on the earth; but through this fact
she forms in solid physical substance an image of something
super-earthly. It is indeed the case that man's nature is organized in
a normal way when he can bring into harmony these three cosmic
activities manifested in a one-sided way in eagle, lion and cow; when
he himself is the confluence of the activities of eagle, lion and cow.

In accordance with the general course of world events, however, we are
now living in an age when the evolution of the world is threatened by
a certain danger; and this danger will — if I may so express
myself — actually take effect in man also in a one-sided way.
From the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries up to our own day the
facts of human earthly evolution are such that, to an ever increasing
degree, the eagle activities wish to make one-sided claims upon the
human head, the lion activities upon the human rhythmic system, and
the cow activities upon the human metabolism and upon all man's
activity on the earth.

This is the stamp of our age, that it is the aim of the cosmic powers
to bring about a threefold division of man, and that, each form of
these cosmic powers is always striving to suppress the others. The
eagle strives to subjugate the lion and the cow and make them of no
account, and in like manner with each of the other elements. Just in
our present age something particularly alluring is working upon the
subconscious in man; alluring because in a certain sense there is also
something beautiful about it. In his conscious life man today is
unaware of this but, for his sub-consciousness, three calls surge and
sound through the world seeking to tempt him with their allurement.
And I must say that it is the secret of our present time that, from
the sphere of the eagle, there sounds down to man what actually gives
the eagle his eagle nature, what gives him his plumage, what hovers
around him as astrality. It is the eagle nature itself which becomes
audible for the sub-consciousness of man. This is the alluring call:

Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To create a universe
In thine own head.

Thus speaks the eagle. That is the call from above, which today wishes
to impose one-sidedness upon man.

And there is a second alluring call. This is the call which comes to
us from the middle region, where the forces of the cosmos form the
lion-nature, where, through the mingling of sun and air, they bring
about that equilibrium between the rhythms of breathing and
blood-circulation which constitutes the nature of the lion. What thus
vibrates through the air, from the nature of the lion, what wills to
make man's own rhythmic system one-sided, this today speaks alluringly
to man's sub-consciousness, saying:

Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To embody the universe
In the radiance* of the encircling air.
[* German Schein for which there is no exact English
equivalent.]

Thus speaks the lion.

These voices, which speak to man's sub-consciousness, have more effect
than is supposed. Yes, my dear friends, there are certain human
natures on earth organized in such a way that they are particularly
liable to absorb their influences. Thus, for instance, all those who
populate the west are so organized that they are specially prone to be
allured, to be led astray, by the voice of the eagle. Thus American
civilization, on account of the special organization of its people, is
particularly exposed to the temptation offered by what the eagle
speaks. And Central Europe, which is imbued with much of the culture
of classical antiquity, which contains so much of what caused Goethe,
for instance, to make his journey to Italy, a journey which acted on
his life like a liberation — central Europe is particularly
exposed to what is uttered by the lion.

Oriental civilization is pre-eminently exposed to what is uttered by
the cow. And just as both other animals give utterance in their cosmic
representation, so there sounds upwards from earth-depths, like a
rumbling, muffled roaring, the call of what lies in the heaviness of
the cow. It is actually the case, as I described to you yesterday,
that when one sees a herd of cattle replete with grazing, sees them as
they lie there in their own peculiar way, their very form revealing
that they are given over to earth-gravity, then all this is
conditioned by the fact that this bodily form must assimilate daily an
eighth of its own weight. And to this must be added that the
earth-depths, which, under the influence of Sun, Mercury, Venus and
Moon, bring all this about in the digestive system of the cow —
that these earth-depths, as if with demonic rumbling power, resound
through such a herd with the words:

Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To wrest from the universe
Measure, number and weight.

Thus speaks the cow. And it is the orient which is specially exposed
to the allurement of this call. What is meant here, however, is that,
though it is the orient which is primarily exposed to this alluring
call of the cow on account of the ancient veneration of the cow in
Hinduism, yet, if this allurement were actually so to seize hold of
mankind that what arises from this call would gain the mastery, then
these influences emanating from the orient would produce a
civilization, which, spreading over centre and west, would hinder
progress and engender decadence. The demonic earth-forces would work
in a one-sided way upon earth-civilization. What then would actually
happen?

The following would happen. In the course of the last centuries, under
the influence of a technology brought about by external science, an
external technological life has come about on the earth. Certainly our
technical achievement is wonderful in every sphere. But in technology
nature forces work in their lifeless form. And the important factors
in bringing these lifeless nature forces into play so absolutely and
utterly that they would impose a stratum of civilization over the
earth — these factors are number, measure and weight.

The scales, the measuring rod — to weigh, to count, to measure
— these are the ideal of the modern scientist, of the modern
technician, whose entire profession is actually dependent upon
external science. We have brought things to such a pass that an
important mathematician of our times, in response to the question:
What is the guarantee of existence?, gives the following answer.
(Philosophers of all ages have tried to answer the question: What is
actually real?) This important physicist says: What can be measured is
real; what cannot be measured is unreal. The ideal is to regard all
being in such a way that it can be brought into the laboratory, and
weighed, measured and counted; and from what is weighed, measured and
counted, science, or what stands for it, is constructed. All this then
streams out into technology. Number, measure and weight have become
the standards of the whole of civilization.

Now as long as people only apply themselves with their ordinary
understanding to measure, number and weight, things are not
particularly bad. People are certainly very clever, but they are still
a long way from being as clever as the universe. And this is why
things cannot become particularly bad so long as, in comparison with
the universe, they go about the measuring, weighing and counting in a
dilettante way. But if present-day civilization were to be transformed
into initiation, things would be bad indeed, if this attitude
of mind remained. And this can happen if the civilization of the west,
which stands entirely under the sign of measure, number and weight,
were to be flooded by what might well come to pass in the east,
namely, that through initiation-science people might fathom what
actually lives spiritually in the organism of the cow. For if you
penetrate into the organism of the cow, burdened with earthly
heaviness, with this eighth of her weight in foodstuffs, with all that
can be weighed, measured and counted, you learn what is being
organized spiritually in the cow by this earth-heaviness, you learn to
understand the whole organism of the cow as it lies in the meadow
digesting, and in this process of digestion manifesting wonderful
revelations from the astrality of the universe. Then you learn how to
form what can be weighed, measured and counted into a system with
which you could overcome all other forms of civilization and impose
upon the whole earth-globe one civilization, which would do nothing
but weigh, count and measure, making everything else disappear. For
what would result from initiation into the organization of the cow?
That is a question of utmost gravity, a question of immense
significance. What would be the result?

Well, the whole way in which people construct machines varies greatly
according to the nature of the machine in question; but everything
tends towards the gradual development of these still imperfect,
primitive machines into a kind of machine which depends upon
vibrations, and where the aim is to make the machines effective by
means of vibrations or oscillations, by means of movements which run a
periodic course. Everything is hastening towards such machines. But if
once these machines in their coordinated activity could be constructed
in such a way as can be learned from the distribution of foodstuffs in
the organization of the cow, then the vibrations which would be
conjured up on the earth-globe through the machines, these small
earth-vibrations, would so run their course that what is above the
earth would sound together with, vibrate together with what is
happening on the earth; so that our planetary system in its movements
would be compelled to vibrate with our earth-system, just as a string
tuned to a certain pitch vibrates in sympathy when another one is
struck in the same room.

That is the terrible law of the sounding in unison of vibrations which
would be fulfilled if the alluring call of the cow would so decoy the
orient that it would then be able to penetrate in an absolutely
convincing way into the unspiritual, purely mechanistic civilization
of the west and centre; and thereby it would become possible to
conjure up on the earth a mechanistic system fitting exactly into the
mechanistic system of the universe. Through this everything connected
with the working of air, with the forces of the circumference, and
everything connected with the working of the stars, would be
exterminated from human civilization. What man experiences, for
instance, through the cycle of the year, what he experiences through
living together with the sprouting, budding life of spring, with the
fading, dying life of autumn — all this would lose its import for
him. Human civilization would resound with the clattering and rattling
of the vibrating machines and with the echo of this clattering and
rattling which would stream down upon the earth from the cosmos as a
reaction to this mechanisation of the earth.

If you observe a part of what is active at the present time, you will
say to yourselves: A part of our present-day civilization is actually
on the way to having this terrible element of degeneracy as its goal.

Now turn your thoughts to what would happen if the centre fell a prey
to the allurements of what is spoken by the lion. Then, it is true,
the danger I have just described would not be present. Then mechanism
would gradually disappear from the face of the earth. Civilization
would not become mechanistic, but, with a one-sided power, man would
be given over to all that lives in wind and weather, in the cycle of
the year. Man would be yoked to the year's course, and thereby
compelled to live particularly in the interaction of his rhythms of
breathing and blood-circulation. He would develop in himself what his
involuntary life can give him. He would primarily develop his
breast-nature. Through this, however, such human egoism would come
over earth civilization that everyone would be intent upon living for
himself alone, that no-one would bother about anything save his own
immediate wellbeing. It is this temptation to which the civilization
of the centre is exposed, such is the existence which could hang like
a fate over the civilization of the earth.

And yet again, if the alluring call of the eagle were to seduce the
west, so that it would succeed in spreading its way of thinking and
attitude of mind over the whole earth, binding itself up in a
one-sided way in this kind of thinking and mental attitude, then, in
mankind as a whole there would arise the urge to enter into connection
with the super-earthly world, as this once was, as it was in the
beginning, at the outset of earth-evolution. People would feel the
urge to extinguish what man has won for himself in freedom and
independence. They would come to live only and entirely in that
unconscious will which allows the gods to live in human muscles and
nerves. They would revert to primitive conditions, to original,
primitive clairvoyance. Man would seek to free himself from the earth
by turning back to beginnings.

And I must say that, for exact clairvoyant vision, this is further
emphasized through the fact that man is continually approached by what
may be called the voice of the grazing cow, which says: “Do not
look upwards; all power comes from the earth. Learn to know all that
lies in earth-activity. Thou shalt become the lord of the earth. Thou
shalt perpetuate the results of thy work on earth.” Yes, if man
were to succumb to this alluring call, it would be impossible to avoid
the danger of which I have spoken: the mechanizing of earth
civilization. For the astrality of this animal of digestion wills to
make the present enduring, to make the present eternal. From the
lion-organization proceeds not what wills to make the present endure,
but rather what would make the present as fleeting as possible, what
would make everything a mere sport of the cycle of the year, always
repeating itself, what would spend itself in wind and weather, in the
play of the sunbeams, in the currents of the air. And civilization,
too, would take on this character.

If, with real understanding, one contemplates the eagle as he soars
through the air, it appears as though he were bearing upon his plumage
the memory of what was there at the very inception of the earth. He
has preserved in his plumage the forces which have still worked into
the earth from above. It can be said that in every eagle we see the
past millennia of the earth; with his physical nature he has not
touched the earth, or at the most only for the purpose of seizing his
prey, and in no way for the satisfaction of his own life. To fulfil
his own life the eagle circles in the air, because he is indifferent
to what has developed on the earth, because he has his joy and
inspiration from the forces of the air, because he actually despises
the life of earth and wishes to live in that same element in which the
earth itself lived when it was not yet earth, but when, in the
beginning of its evolution, it was still imbuing itself with heavenly
forces. The eagle is the proud creature which would not partake in the
evolution of the solid earth, which withdrew from the influence of
this solidifying process, and wished to remain united only with those
forces which were there at the inception of the earth.

Such are the teachings given to us by this threefold representation of
the animal kingdom, if we can conceive it as an immense and mighty
script, written into the universe for the elucidation of its riddles.
For, in very truth, every single thing in the universe is a written
character if we could but read it. And especially when we can read
their connection do we understand the riddle of the universe.

How full of significance it is to have to realize: What we do when we
measure with the compasses or measuring rod, when we weigh with the
scales, when we count — this is in fact only a putting together
of something which is fragmentary; it becomes a whole when we
understand the organization of the cow in its inner spirituality. This
means to read in the secrets of the universe. And this reading in the
secrets of the universe leads into the understanding of the being of
the world and of man. This is modern initiation wisdom. It is this
which must be uttered at the present time from out of the depths of
spiritual life.

It is difficult indeed today for man to be really man. For, if I may
put it so, in face of the three animal types, man conducts himself
like the antelope in the fable which I told you yesterday. What wills
to be one-sided takes on a particular form. The lion remains lion, but
he wishes to have his fellow beasts of prey as metamorphoses of the
other animal representatives. Thus for what in truth is eagle he
substitutes a fellow beast of prey, the hyena, whose nature it is to
live upon what is dead, upon that element of death which is induced in
our head, and which continually, at every moment, contributes
atomistic particles towards our death. So this fable replaces the
eagle with the hyena, the hyena which consumes decay; and in the place
of the cow — in line with the degeneration — the lion puts
his fellow beast of prey, the wolf. Thus we have in the fable the
other threefold animal group, the lion, the hyena, the wolf. And as
today the alluring calls stand over against each other, their cosmic
symbolism is confronted with its opposite, in that, when the alluring
calls resound, the eagle sinks to earth and becomes the hyena, and the
cow no longer desires in her holy, humble way to be an image of the
cosmos, but becomes the ravening wolf.

And now we can translate the legend with which I ended my lecture
yesterday from the negro version into that of modern civilization.
Yesterday I had to narrate this legend from what may be called the
negro point of view: The lion, the wolf and the hyena went out
hunting. They killed an antelope. First the hyena was asked to divide
the prey; he apportioned it according to hyena-logic, and said:
“A third for everyone: a third for the lion, a third for the
wolf, and a third for me.” Whereupon the hyena was consumed. And
now the lion said to the wolf, “You divide it.” So the wolf
said, “You get the first third because you have killed the hyena,
and therefore the hyena's share is also your due. The second third is
yours because, according to the verdict of the hyena, you would have
had a third in any case, for each of us was to have had a third; and
you got the last third as well, because of all the beasts you are the
wisest and bravest.” And the lion said to the wolf, “Who
taught you to divide in so excellent a way?” The wolf said,
“The hyena taught it me.”

The logic is the same in both cases, but in its application to reality
something quite different results according to whether the hyena, or
the wolf with the hyena's experience, applied the logic. It is in the
application of logic to reality that the essential matter lies.

Now we can also translate this fable into what I may call the version
of modern civilization and tell the story somewhat differently. But
please notice that what I am telling is in terms of the whole
development of the great course of culture. Thus, expressed in modern
fashion, the story could perhaps run as follows: The antelope is
killed. The hyena withdraws and delivers a silent verdict; he does not
dare to arouse the growling of the lion. He draws back, delivers a
silent verdict, and waits in the background. The lion and the wolf now
begin to fight for the body of the antelope. They fight and fight,
until they have so severely wounded each other that both die from
their wounds. Now comes the hyena, and consumes antelope, wolf and
lion, after they have entered into a state of decay. The hyena is the
image of what lies in the human intellect, the element in human nature
which kills. He is the reverse side, the caricature, of the eagle
civilization.

If you feel what I wish to convey by the europeanizing of the old
negro fable, you will understand that just at the present time these
things should be rightly understood. But they will only be rightly
understood when, in opposition to the threefold alluring call — the call
of the eagle, and of the lion, and of the cow — man learns what he
himself should utter, that utterance which today should be the good
shibboleth of man's strength, and thinking, and activity:

I must learn
Thy power, O Cow,
From the language
Which the stars reveal in me.

To comprehend earth-gravity, not as mere weighing, measuring and
counting; to understand not merely what lies in the physical
organization of the cow, but what is embodied in her; humbly to turn
our gaze away from her organization up to the heights — this
alone will ensure the spiritualisation of what would otherwise become
the mechanistic civilization of the earth.

And the second utterance of the human being must be:

I must learn
Thy power, O Lion,
From the language
Which, through year and day,
Encircling space makes active in me.

Notice the words “reveal”, “make active”.

And the third utterance which man must learn is:

I must learn
Thy power, O Eagle,
From the language
Which earth-born life creates in me.

Thus man must oppose his threefold utterance to the one-sided alluring
calls, that threefold utterance whose meaning can bring what is
one-sided into harmonious balance. He must learn to look towards the
cow, but then, after entering with deep experience into her nature,
turn his gaze upwards to what is revealed by the language of the
stars. He must learn to direct his gaze upwards to the eagle, but
then, after deeply experiencing within himself the eagle's nature, he
must look down with the clear gaze that the eagle's nature has
bestowed upon him, and behold what springs and sprouts forth from the
earth, and what also works from below upwards in the organization of
man. And he must learn so to behold the lion that the lion reveals to
him what is wafted around him in the wind, what flashes towards him in
the lightning, what rumbles around him in the thunder, what wind and
weather, in the course of the seasons, bring about in the life of the
earth into which man himself is yoked. Thus, when man shall direct his
physical gaze upwards with his spiritual gaze downwards, when he shall
direct his physical gaze downwards with his spiritual gaze upwards,
when he shall direct his physical gaze outwards towards the east with
his spiritual gaze in the opposite direction towards the west —
thus when man shall allow above and below, forwards and backwards,
spiritual gaze and physical gaze to interpenetrate each other, then he
will be able to receive and understand the true calls, bringing him
strength and not weakness — the calls of the eagle from the
heights, of the lion from the circumference, of the cow from below
within the earth.

This is what man should learn in regard to his connection with the
universe, so that thereby he may become ever more fitted to work for
earth-civilization, and to serve, not its decadence, but its upward
progress.

Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To create a universe
In thine own head.

Thus speaks the Eagle.West.

Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To embody the universe
In the radiance of the encircling air.

Thus speaks the Lion.Centre.

Learn to know my nature!
I give thee the power
To wrest from the universe
Measure, number and weight.

Thus speaks the Cow.Orient.

I must learn
Thy power, O Cow,
From the language
Which the stars reveal in me.

I must learn
Thy power, O Lion,
From the language
Which, through year and day,
Encircling space makes active in me.

I must learn
Thy power, O Eagle,
From the language
Which earth-born life creates in me.